Tattoos on the Heart: Chapter 4 Summary & Analysis

Over the years, Boyle has baptized thousands of people in Los Angeles. Sometimes, he’ll run into adults whom he baptized twenty years ago. In 1996, he baptizes a teenager named George Martinez. George wants to be baptized immediately following his taking of the GED exam. Just before the baptism, George’s brother Cisco is murdered in a gang fight. Boyle decides to proceed with the baptism. The ceremony is very emotional, with George weeping throughout. But it represents an important part of George’s life—the moment in which he agrees to embrace God and find the courage to live a happy life.

Boyle recalls a young man who worked for Homeboy Industries. He calls Boyle on New Year’s Day and wishes him a happy New Year. Over the phone, Boyle can sense his pride—he has a family now, and he’s even cooked a turkey dinner for them. Shortly afterwards, Boyle meets the man in person, and the man confesses, “I always suspected that there was something of goodness in me, but I just couldn’t find it.”

Boyle next recalls a teenager named Terry who used to come to the church. She would wear a short, red dress, and often asked Boyle to promise that he’d bury her in the dress. Boyle realizes that Terry thinks she’s going to die soon. He encounters many young women who think they should have children at a young age, since they doubt they’ll live long.

Many of the gang members Boyle meets grew up without a father. And some of the youths Boyle meets who did have fathers in their lives had to endure horrible beatings and other forms of abuse.

The next person Boyle writes about is a young woman named Natalie Urritia, who comes to work for Homeboy Industries after a year in prison. She’s a former gang member and a drug user, as well as a mother of two children. Boyle often wonders what Natalie would be like if she’d had a better childhood and more reliable parents. Once, Boyle has a dream about her—in the dream, Natalie is about to sing a song before a big crowd. The crowd, which thinks that Natalie is an awful singer, boos and jeers. But when Natalie opens her mouth, her voice is beautiful, and the crowd falls silent.

Perhaps the most basic difference between Homeboy Industries and a Los Angeles gang, Boyle argues, is that gangs offer conditional love and support: if their members do something wrong, they can be punished or even killed. Homeboy Industries, on the other hand, offers its members unconditional love: Boyle will always help and look out for his congregants.

One day, Boyle is working when he notices that Danny, a young kid, has wandered into his office. Danny insists that Boyle stay still so that he can draw Boyle. The final image is hideously ugly—because, according to Danny, “Ya moved.” This episode, Boyle writes, reveals how God works: God can see the beauty is every person, even if people “move” and therefore seem “less than perfect.”

Boyle meets a teenager named Andres. Andres has run away from home at the age of thirteen because his mother tortures him, holding him underwater and putting out cigarettes on his skin. Boyle offers Andres a home to ensure that he doesn’t fall in with a gang. During Mike Wallace’s visit to Homeboy Industries, Wallace tells Andres, “You’d really have to be an asshole not to continue on this path of success.” Andres thinks that Wallace is calling him an asshole, and later admits to Boyle that he wanted to “toss up” (i.e., punch) Wallace. Boyle laughs and thinks, “Who among us hasn’t wanted to ‘toss up’ Mike Wallace?” Andres later visits his mother with Boyle. When his mother sees him, she just says, “You are garbage.” To Boyle’s amazement, Andres forgives his mother.

Boyle has noticed that his students and congregants have a tendency to think of their flaws as proof of unworthiness. Gangsters in particularly have a habit of growing attached to their weaknesses. Boyle’s mission is to draw these people’s attention to their virtues and inherent goodness.

Boyle recalls a man named Fabian, who worked for Homeboy Industries for many years, and now has a job, a wife, and three children. When Fabian was 19, Boyle traveled to Washington, D.C. to give a speech; with him were Fabian and Felipe, “an enemy from [Fabian’s] gang’s worst rival.” On the trip, Fabian and Felipe got along well and enjoyed watching movies together. Boyle remembers Fabian as a compassionate, incredibly friendly kid—he could make friends with absolutely anyone.

In recent years, in part because of his cancer diagnosis, Boyle has started to receive a lot of awards for his two decades working with gang members. Whenever he gets an award, Boyle gives it to one of his former students or employees. On one occasion, Boyle chooses a teenager named Elias Montes to accept an award he receives from Loyola Marymount University. Elias is honored, but then—when Boyle informs him that he’ll have to give a speech—horrified. Elias eventually gives the speech. He speaks plainly but sincerely, and when he falls silent, the audience “goes nuts.”

Boyle recalls the day that Jason—a quiet, somewhat sullen former gang member—ran into his office. Jason was overjoyed to have gotten a job. Later, he tells Boyle why he spent so many years committing crimes and doing drugs: “I was so fuckin’ angry all the time.” But eventually, he found the courage to let his anger go forever. Soon after, Jason was gunned down by rival gang members, and Boyle buried him. Jason, Boyle thinks, was the light of the world.